Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon (Burton & Swinburne) (3 page)

In the smoking room, Bendyshe, in a black hooded cloak and a skull mask, spent the minutes leading up to his death happily pranking the Greek god Apollo. The diminutive flame-haired Olympian, actually the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, dressed in a toga, with a laurel wreath upon his head and the gold-tipped arrow of Eros pushed through his waistband, was standing near a bay window with the Persian King Shahryār, Oliver Cromwell, Harlequin, and a cavalier; otherwise Sir Richard Francis Burton, the Secretary for War Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Monckton Milnes, and the Technologist captain of the
Orpheus
, Nathaniel Lawless.

Swinburne had just received a full glass of brandy from a passing waiter, who, like all the staff, was dressed in a Venetian
Medico Della Peste
costume, complete with its long-beaked bird mask. The poet took a gulp, placed the glass on an occasional table at his side, and turned back to Captain Lawless, saying: “But isn't it rather a large crew? I was under the impression that rotorships are flown by seven or eight, not—how many?”

“Counting myself,” the captain replied, “there are twenty-six, and that's not even a full complement.”

“My hat! How on earth do you keep yourselves occupied?”

Lawless laughed, his pale-grey eyes twinkling, his straight teeth whiter even than his snowy, tightly clipped beard. “I don't think you've quite grasped the size of the
Orpheus,”
he said. “She's Mr. Brunel's biggest flying machine. A veritable titan. When you see her tomorrow, I'll wager she'll take your breath away.”

The Technologist Daniel Gooch joined the group. As always, he was wearing a harness from which two extra mechanical arms extended. Swinburne had already expressed the opinion that the engineer should have outfitted himself as a giant insect. As a matter of fact, though, Gooch was dressed as a Russian Cossack. He said, “She's magnificent, Mr. Swinburne. Luxurious, too. Designed for passenger cruises. She'll carry the expedition, the supplies, and both your vehicles, with plenty of room to spare.”

Bendyshe, standing just behind the poet, with his back to him and conversing with Charles Bradlaugh—who was done up as Dick Turpin—surreptitiously took the brandy glass from the table. He slipped it beneath his mask, drained it in a single gulp, put it back, and winked at Bradlaugh through his mask's right eye socket.

“Are all the crew positions filled, Captain?” Burton asked. “I hear you had some problems.”

Lawless nodded. “The two funnel scrubbers supplied to us by the League of Chimney Sweeps proved rather too young and undisciplined for the job. They were playing silly beggars in the ventilation pipes and caused some considerable damage. I dismissed them at once.” He addressed Gooch, who was serving as chief engineer aboard the vessel: “I understand the replacements will join us at Battersea?”

“Yes, sir, and they'll bring with them a new length of pipe from the League.” One of his mechanical hands dipped into his jacket pocket and withdrew a notebook. He consulted it and said, “Their names are William Cornish and Tobias Threadneedle.”

“Nippers?”

“Cornish is a youngster, sir. Apparently Mr. Threadneedle is considerably older, though I expect he'll prove childishly small in stature, like all his kind.”

Unable to stop himself, Gooch glanced down at Swinburne, who poked out his tongue in response.

“A master sweep, no doubt,” Burton offered. “I believe the Beetle is attempting to incorporate their Brotherhood into the League.” He paused, then said, “Where have I heard the name William Cornish before?”

“From me,” Swinburne answered, in his high, piping voice. “I know him. And a fine young scamp he is, too, though rather too eager to spend his evenings setting traps in graveyards in the hope of catching a resurrectionist or two!” He reached for his glass, raised it to his lips, started, looked at it ruefully, and muttered, “Blast!” He signalled to a waiter.

“Resurrectionists? The Beetle? Pipes? What in heaven's name are we talking about?” Cornewall Lewis exclaimed.

Burton answered, “The Beetle is the rather mysterious head of the sweeps' organisation. A boy. Very intelligent and well read. He lives in a factory chimney.”

“Good Lord!”

Swinburne took another glass of brandy from the waiter, sipped it, and placed it on the table.

“I never met the Beetle,” he said, “but I worked with Willy Cornish when I served under a master sweep named Vincent Sneed during Richard's investigation of the Spring Heeled Jack affair. Sneed was a vicious big-nosed lout whom I had the misfortune to bump into again during last summer's riots. I knocked the wind out of the swine.”

“You fell on top of him,” Burton corrected.

Unseen, Bendyshe took the poet's glass, swallowed almost all of its contents, and slid it back into position.

Bradlaugh whispered to him, “Are you sure that's wise, old man? You'll end up sloshed if you're not careful!”

“Nonshence,” Bendyshe slurred. “I'm jober as a sudge.”

Monckton Milnes turned to Lawless. “What exactly does a funnel scrubber do?”

“Normally, he'll be based at a landing field,” the aeronaut answered, “and is responsible for keeping a ship's smoke and steam outlets clean and free of obstruction. However, in the bigger vessels, which fly at a higher altitude, extensive internal pipe systems circulate warm air to ensure that a comfortable temperature is maintained in every cabin. The pipes are wide enough for a nipper to crawl through, and it's a funnel scrubber's job to do just that, cleaning out the dust and moisture that accrues.”

“That sounds like dashed hot and uncomfortable work!”

“Indeed. But not compared to cleaning chimneys.” Lawless addressed Swinburne: “As you obviously know from personal experience, sweeps lead a dreadful existence. Those that get work as funnel scrubbers are considered the fortunate few.”

“I hardly think that such a promotion completely justifies the word ‘fortunate,’” put in Burton. “Funnel scrubbers are still emotionally and physically scarred by their years of poverty and brutality. The Beetle does what he can to protect his lads but he can't change the social order. To improve the lives of sweeps, we'd need to instigate a fundamental shift in the way wealth is distributed. We'd have to raise the masses out of the sucking quagmire of poverty into which the Empire's foundations are sunk.”

He looked at Cornewall Lewis, who shrugged and stated, “I'm the secretary for war, Sir Richard. My job is to protect the Empire, not right its wrongs.”

“Protect it, or expand it, along with its iniquities, sir?”

Monckton Milnes cleared his throat. “Now, now, Richard,” he said, softly. “This isn't really the occasion, is it?”

Burton bit his lip and nodded. “My apologies, Sir George—I spoke out of turn. I've been rather sensitive to such matters since the Tichborne riots.”

Cornewall Lewis opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by Swinburne, who suddenly screeched: “What? What? Has the world gone giddy? How can I possibly be guzzling my drinks at this rate? I swear I've barely tasted a drop!”

Burton frowned down at his assistant. “Algy, please remember that you are Apollo, not Dionysus,” he advised. “Try to regulate your imbibing.”

“Regulate? Regulate? What in blue blazes are you jabbering about, Richard? Nobody drinks more regularly than me!”

The poet gazed at his empty glass with an expression of bemusement, then signalled to another waiter. Behind him, Bendyshe and Bradlaugh smothered their chuckles.

“Anyway,” said Gooch, “when the nippers arrive, the crew will be complete.” He produced a slip of paper from between the pages of his notebook. “I have the complete roster here, sir.”

Lawless took the note, read it through, and nodded his approval.

“May I see that, Captain?” Burton asked.

“Certainly.”

The king's agent took the list and scrutinised it. He read:

Commanding Officer: Captain Nathaniel Lawless

First Officer: William Samuel Henson

Second Officer: Wordsworth Pryce

Helmsman: Francis H. Wenham

Assistant Helmsman: Walter D'Aubigny

Navigator: Cedric Playfair

Meteorologist: Arthur Bingham

Chief Engineer: Daniel Gooch

Engineer: Harold Bloodmann

Engineer: Charles Henderson

Engineer: Cyril Goodenough

Engineer: James Bolling

Chief Rigger: Gordon Champion

Rigger: Alexander Priestley

Rigger: Winford Doe

Fireman: Walter Gerrard

Fireman: Peter Etheridge

Stoker: Thomas Beadle

Stoker: Gwyn Reece-Jones

Funnel Scrubber:
Ronald Welbergen
William Cornish

Funnel Scrubber:
Michael Drake
Tobias Threadneedle

Steward/Surgeon: Doctor Barnaby Quaint

Assistant Steward/Surgeon: Sister Sadhvi Raghavendra

Quartermaster: Frederick Butler

Assistant Quartermaster: Isabella Mayson

Cabin Boy: Oscar Wilde

“I trust Quips is living up to my recommendation?” Burton asked the captain.

“Quips?”

“Young Master Wilde.”

“Ah. An appropriate nickname—he's a very witty young man. How old is he? Twelve-ish?”

“He celebrated his ninth birthday a couple of months ago.”

“Good Lord! That young? And an orphan?”

“Yes. He lost his entire family to the Irish famine. He stowed away aboard a ship to Liverpool, made his way to London, and has been working there as a paperboy ever since.”

“Well, I must say, I'm impressed by his industry. There's an unpleasant amount of bureaucracy associated with the captaincy of a rotorship and the youngster picked up the paperwork in a flash and keeps it better organised and up to date than I could ever hope to. Furthermore, I find that whenever I say ‘hop to it,’ he's already hopped. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Oscar Wilde captains his own ship one day.” Lawless ran his fingers over his beard. “Sir Richard, what about these young ladies? Having women serving as crew isn't entirely without precedent, but are you sure it's wise to take the Sister with you on your expedition? Africa is harsh enough on a man, isn't it? And what about all that dashed cannibalism? Won't she be considered too dainty a morsel to resist?”

“It is indeed a cruel environment, as I know to my cost,” Burton answered. “However, Sister Raghavendra is from India and possesses a natural immunity to many of the ills that assail a European in Africa. Furthermore, her medical skills are exceptional. I wish she'd been with me on my previous excursions. I assure you she'll be well looked after all the way to Kazeh, where she'll remain with our Arabian hosts while the rest of us hike north to the supposed position of the Mountains of the Moon.”

“And the cannibals?”

The corners of Burton's mouth twitched slightly. “Those few tribes that feast on human flesh do so in a ritualistic fashion to mark their victory in battle. It's not as common a phenomenon as the storybooks would have you believe. For a daily meal of arm or leg, you'll have to go to the other side of the world, to Koluwai, a small island to the southeast of Papua New Guinea. There they will very happily have European visitors for dinner—and I don't mean as guests. Apparently, we taste like pork.”

“Oof! I'm rather more in favour of lamb chops!” Lawless responded.

Cornewall Lewis interrupted: “You'll leave her with Arabians? Can they be trusted with the fair sex?”

Burton clicked his tongue impatiently. “Sir, if you choose to believe the lies propagated by your own government, that is up to you, but despite the calumnies that are circulated in the corridors of parliament, I have never found the Arabian race to be anything less than extraordinarily benevolent, courteous, and entirely honourable.”

“I meant only to suggest that there might be a risk in leaving a woman of the Empire in non-Christian hands, Sir Richard.”

“Christian? Do you then stand in opposition to Darwin's findings? Do you also believe that your God favours some races over others?”

“I use the word merely out of habit, as a synonym for civilised,” Cornewall Lewis protested.

“Then I'm to take it you don't consider the Arabians civilised, despite that they invented modern mathematics, surgical instruments, soap and perfume, the windmill, the crankshaft, and a great many other things; despite that they realised the Earth is a sphere that circles the sun five hundred years before Galileo was tortured by your Christian church for supporting the same notion?”

The secretary for war pursed his lips uneasily.

“That reminds me,” said Monckton Milnes. “Richard, I have the manuscript we discussed—the Persian treatise.”

“The what?”

“The translation you were looking for.” He stepped forward and hooked his arm through Burton's. “It's in the library. Come, I'll show you. Excuse us please, gentlemen, we shan't be long.”

Before Burton could object he was pulled from the group and propelled through the guests toward the door.

“What blessed treatise?” he spluttered.

“A necessary fiction to remove you from the battlefield,” Monckton Milnes hissed. “What the blazes has got into you? Why are you snapping like a rabid dog at Cornewall Lewis?”

They left the room, steered across a parlour, past a small gathering in the reception hall, entered a corridor, and stopped at a carved oak door. Monckton Milnes drew a key from a pocket in his costume, turned it in the lock, and, after they had entered into the room beyond, secured the door behind them.

They were in his famous and somewhat notorious library.

He pointed to big studded leather armchairs near the fireplace and snapped: “Go. Sit.”

Burton obeyed.

Monckton Milnes went to a cabinet, retrieved a bottle and glasses from it, and poured two drinks. He joined Burton and handed one to him.

“Vintage
Touriga Nacional
, 1822, one of the finest ports ever produced,” he murmured. “It cost me a bloody fortune. Don't gulp it down. Savour it.”

Burton put the glass to his nose and inhaled the aroma. He took a taste, smacked his lips, then leaned back in his chair and considered his friend.

“My apologies, dear fellow.”